PEACE PEOPLE! Possabilities of Progressive Po
PEACE PEOPLE! Possabilities of Progressive Po - 04.01.2004 20:53
We are living in the past if we think the voting public is not ready to elect a progressive, populist President. This is not the past. Dean's way is precisely the WRONG approach. Heck, look what Dean did to Vermont - he took a 74% re-elect rate and whittled it down to 50.4% in 2000, before quitting in 2002 to "run for President" while the ranks of "progressives" and republicans grew in Vermont until no Democrat could get elected, and his own Lt. Governor lost to the Republican in 2002 - Vermont is governed by a Republican and NO POSITION DEAN EVER HELD IN VERMONT IS IN DEMOCRATIC HANDS NOW.(incls.-2000 Vote Analysis, Are You a Burning Flame, GrannyD, Jane Fonda + Poem)
WE ARE ALL MIDWIVES IN THE BIRTHING OF A NEW WORLD
ru a bUrNing Flame?
WE ALL KNOW DEAN IS DECEIVIOUSLY DECEPTIVE AND NOW THESE WIDELY SPREAD COMMENTS FROM ASSOCIATED PRESS SHOWS THE DESPERATION from a inconsistent soft candidacy propped up by marketing and cartoony smoke and mirrors. A Spectacle but not spectacular to the Real people in the know. SHAME ON ALL THOSE CABLE NEWS CAMERAMEN, BEWARE OF CAREERISTS IN ALL AREAS OF "NEWS" AND JOURNALISM!
AP:Dec. 31, 2003 *****
I'm taking my ball home
As if Dean didn't already have his Democratic rivals on the attack, he compounded their anger Sunday by suggesting that stronger leadership at the Democratic National Committee would have gotten them to hold their fire. The message: Dean will be the nominee, so party leaders should order other candidates to stop knocking him now because it will hurt the party in the general election.
His comments, reported by the New York Times, struck many as presumptuous and amateurish, and his words in an Associated Press story made things worse: He said that he would endorse the eventual nominee but that hundreds of thousands of Democratic voters might stay home in November if that nominee is not him.
Sharpton called Dean's comments "arrogant and divisive." Said Dick Gephardt: "The race for the Democratic nomination should be a contest, not a coronation."
John Kerry agreed, and Joe Lieberman suggested the Democratic competitors' gibes are child's play: "Dean will melt in a minute once Republicans start going after him," Lieberman said.
Cheney: Dean's role model?
Is Dean a bit like Vice President Dick Cheney? An Associated Press examination of Dean's energy policy "working group" in Vermont suggests so.
As happened with Cheney's national energy task force, then-Gov. Dean kept out the public in 1998 on the belief that the work could best be done in secret.
*****
ACTION ALERT*** PLEASE NETWORK HOT, HOT, HOT VOTING ANALYSIS FROM MINNESOTA KUCITIZEN, Please Send this Man a MEDAL
2000 Exit Polls Prove 40/40/20 Analysis - Kucinich Strongest Against Bush
Date: Tuesday, December 30 2003 @ 19:39:05 EST
Topic: Network
Much is being made of the "electability" (directly resulting from money raised among activists) of Dean and Clark, but the fact is that progressives ("lefties") hold the cards this election they will determine the outcome, one way or the other. I made an argument like that in History and the Rise of Progressive Electoral Power Make Kucinich a Contender.- http://www.imwithdennis.com/article95.html
Democrats, despite the sway of the power of money driving the nomination process so far, have overshot their bell curve peak to the "right." Democrats are misjudging a "core" that lies further to the "left" than they're willing to admit or that we're allowed to understand - using the rule election analysts call the 40/40/20 rule, it's obvious that the nominee who captures the "Nader" voters along with the real Democratic core will be the only candidate who will beat Bush by greater than the Black Box (and electoral vote shift) margin. I made that argument in Where the Votes Are. - http://minnesotaforkucinich.com/Articles/Local/WheretheVotesAre.pdf
What the analysis of progressive power in Democratic politics shows is that not only is Kucinich electable, he's our best chance to beat the unelected fraud and keep him from ever getting his first legitimate term of office.
Amazingly, people who in most other scenarios would consider themselves activists who will fight to the end - to take back the media, for campaign reform, to protect ANWR - seem suddenly and uncharacteristically willing to surrender now and settle so early in the nomination process. Anyone who thinks they resonate with Kucinich should stick with him to the convention - why not stick with the best, the real anti-Bush? To really get my feel for the way progressives seem to be selling themselves short this time around, and seem willing to throw up their hands and surrender before they've even begun to fight, check out my short story, The Brainwashed Woman and the New Dawn.- http://www.imwithdennis.com/article157.html
And now, an analysis of the 2000 Election exit polling data confirms what the 40/40/20 analysis determined Democrats will be strongest running the most progressive candidate they can find.
We start with the source of the exit polling data from VNS, found at:
http://www.udel.edu/poscir/road/course/exitpollsindex.html
This data clearly legitimizes the conclusions found through the use of the 40/40/20 rule to analyze the electorate, and the likely effect on the 2004 election.
The graphs says, that of the 13157 people polled:
39% self-identified as Democrats.
35% self-identified as Republicans.
27% self-identified as Independents.
(Not far off from the general framework of the 40/40/20 rule.)
Of the "independents":
45% voted for Gore.
47% voted for Bush.
(Roughly half each, as the my analysis pointed out would be the case.)
However, as it related to Nader:
2% of self-identified Democrats voted for Nader.
1% of self-identified Republicans voted for Nader.
6% of self-identified independents voted for Nader.
If we project these percentages to the 2000 election numbers, they tell us that:
There were 40,560,000 Democratic votes available. (I used "40 million" in my analysis) 104m X 39%
There were 36,400,000 Republican votes available. (Wow, weaker than I thought - again, I used "40 million" in my analysis) 104m X 35%
Nader got 811,200 Democratic votes. 40.56m X 2%
Nader got 364,000 Republican votes. 36.4m X 1%
Nader got 1,684,8000 "independent" votes. 28.08m X 6%
(Not far from his total take of about 3 million, so it looks right so far)
Unfortunately, the "vote by ideology" numbers aren't as useful as they would be if they were broken down by affiliation, but looking at them tells us a lot about the "bell curve" of the Gore vote.
First of all, "moderate" used by a Bush voter probably means "more liberal" and "moderate" used by a Gore voter probably means "more conservative" than the candidate they voted for (or that's what they thought the question was that was being asked), so each term is seen as being used in relation to the vote cast.
So, projected to the numbers, the total looks like this:
20,800,000 self-identified "liberals"
52,000,000 self-identified "moderates"
30,160,000 self-identified "conservative"
But much more telling is the bell curve in the Gore total:
Gore got 16,640,000 liberal votes.
Gore got 27,040,000 moderate votes.
Gore got 5,127,200 conservative votes.
Nader got 1,248,000 liberal votes.
Nader got 1,040,000 moderate votes.
Nader got 51,272 conservative votes.
In the bell curve analysis following the 40/40/20 rule strictly, Gore got "40 million" core/moderate votes (these would be people who in the above example self-identified as closely related to what they thought the "middle" would be), and then under the 40/40/20 rule (splitting the "20%" between Bush and Gore and then again to form the sides of the bell curve) he was determined to have gotten 5 million votes from people who thought he should be more "conservative" and 5 million from people who thought he should be more "liberal."
Thus the 40/40/20 rule determined the "shape" of the bell curve to be 80% center, and 10% on each side, but the numbers from the exit polling data present an even more shocking conclusion - the bell curve is even flatter and even more sloped to the "left" than the 40/40/20 rule was able to discern!
While the number of self-identified "Democrats" in the exit poll isn't far off the mark from where the 40/40/20 rule proposed it would be (and Bush and Gore both split each other's take, cancelling out each other's affiliation vote), the ideology numbers in the Gore column are really telling.
Fully 35% of Gore's voters identified themselves as to the "left" of the "core" if that is what they perceived as "liberal" in the question of ideology - relative to vote cast.
The 40/40/20 rule projected that 5 million, or 10%, of Gore's take voted for him wishing he were more "liberal or populist."
Only 55% of Gore's voters equated themselves with the "core" if by that is meant "moderate" (again, relative to vote cast).
But in the 40/40/20 rule analysis, the "core" or "center" of the bell curve is worth 80% - the bell curve is clearly much flatter than the 40/40/20 analysis alone was able to pick up.
Only, and most importantly, in the tally of the "conservatives" was the 40/40/20 analysis practically spot on. Exit polls show that about 5 million voted for Gore wishing he were more "conservative" and that's almost exactly what the 40/40/20 analysis predicted would be the case.
The 40/40/20 analysis, determining Kucinich as the strongest candidate, supposed that Kucinich would get all Nader's voters.
But from the above numbers, let's shave off the "conservatives" for Nader - if Kucinich takes the 2,228,000 "liberal" and "moderate" Nader voters (remember, the 40/40/20 analysis said 3 million), then Kucinich is almost exactly where the analysis said he'd be.
And the exit polling numbers put 5.1 million votes into the "conservative voted for Gore" pile - these are the votes that people say are the "at-risk" voters who wished Gore were more "conservative."
So Kucinich turns out to be almost exactly where the 40/40/20 rule analysis said he'd be - gaining about 3 million (exit poll = 2.3 million), and making the battle with Bush entirely a battle for 5 million previous Gore voters (exit poll = 5.1 million).
All-in-all, this data provides an explicit proof of the conclusions from the 40/40/20 rule analysis:
1. The "progressive" bell curve is flatter and more sloped to the "left" than the DLC and the "centrist conservative" Democratic candidates want us to believe, and
2. Kucinich is still the candidate positioned best to pick up Nader's votes and therefore is the ONLY candidate who can make the fight against Bush entirely a battle for 5 million previous Gore voters - not needing ANY previous Bush voters to beat Bush decisively.
Want to win? Nominate Kucinich.
Dan Brown
Saint Paul, Minnesota
EXCERPT; CONCLUSION FROM Where the Votes Are PDF-
I assert that the best way to beat the republican theft spread is to start with 8 MILLION PROGRESSIVE VOTES IN YOUR POCKET before even going up against Bush - making the race SOLELY for former Gore voters.
Some Democratic activists, and their "core" brethren, think that you can assure victory by making it a HEAD-TO-HEAD RACE FOR 5 MILLION PREVIOUS GORE VOTERS AND 5 MILLION PREVIOUS BUSH VOTERS. You're obviously entitled to your opinion, but I fail to see the logic in thinking that 10 MILLION SPLIT DOWN THE MIDDLE is greater than 8 MILLION IN THE POCKET.
Not bloody likely.
You'd have to be capable of believing that 50 million conservative votes versus 53 million progressive votes means "AMERICA DOES NOT VOTE FOR LIBERALS" in order to get sold on that kind of HOGWASH!
>Strategic Compromises and Burning Flames
Date: Friday, January 02 2004 @ 12:55:37 EST
Topic: Network
Strategic Compromises and Burning Flames
A single flame, with patience, can light a million candles.
by Stephen Dinan
 stephen@radicalspirit.org
http://www.presidentkucinich.com/PK_pages/Local_Campaign/burningflames.htm
The debate among progressives these days revolves around choosing the right Democratic candidate to defeat Bush. There is a singular intensity and urgency about this quest, a sense that all that is good and beautiful in the world hangs in the balance. Many have come to the conclusion that their best hope is Howard Dean, even if they donšt like everything about him.
>Hešs as big a stretch as we can hope for in today's climate. It is simple logic: strategic compromise in the service of defeating Bush. While I certainly understand the impulse behind those who back strategic compromise, I think it actually does more harm than good in the long term. Instead, I want to offer an alternative vision, one in which each of us dares to stand as a burning flame for that which we believe in, even if that might not seem strategic or popular at first. Before I look at what it means to be a burning flame, though, I want to point out some major problems with strategic compromise to defeat Bush.
>1) Strategic compromise largely emerges from fear. At the root, there is often a sense that the only way one's real truth and real passion can impact the world is to be aligned with someone that is more powerful. In other words, there is a fundamental sense of inferiority or impotence underneath strategic compromise. That sense of impotence is conveyed to all those who listen.
>2) Focusing on defeating Bush is a negative goal. Negative outcomes can certainly bring benefits in the long term but negative goals tend to burn people out and skew our passions. The enduring missions, the ones that can lead to major, sustainable change, are born out of a positive vision for what we want to create and how we want to live.
>3) Strategic compromise does not change the image in the media mirror. Values-oriented studies have revealed a large and growing population in America labeled the Cultural Creatives who share a similar range of progressive values but are mostly unaware of each other or the power this population wields.
>4) Strategic compromise often puts different parts of ourselves at odds with each other, which diminishes the amount of life energy we can utilize. When our heart battles our mind or our soul conflicts with our will, much of our creative magic is locked up rather than extended to the world via our mission. Strategic compromise leads people to burn out over time because of this lack of alignment.
>5) Strategic compromise discourages the best people from entering politics because they do not see adequate popular support for their positions.
>6) Strategic compromise reinforces the collective climate of fear that has lingered from 9-11. Fear rarely leads us to our noblest achievements
WHAT IS MEAN'T BY A BURNING FLAME? Are you ONE? Would YOU like to be one?....
***Fear has put America off mission. When we speak from a place beyond fear, it assuages the fears of those who listen and begins to rekindle the dream of America. The mentality of strategic compromise contrasts sharply with the mindset that leads to "burning flames." A Burning Flame is someone whose body, emotions, heart, mind, and soul are lit up with a purpose, someone who is on fire with a calling. A Burning Flame is passionate and purposeful. A Burning Flame is love with a mission. The mindset of a burning flame is profoundly contagious because almost everyone hungers to be a Burning Flame. We want to be people of wisdom, depth, and passion that really make a difference with others. However,the vast majority feel they do not either have the talent, the time, or the boldness to be a Burning Flame. They look at friends and families and see mostly compromise, contraction, and dashed ideals. They carry wounds from the past and shroud their hopes for the future to avoid disappointment. This is a safe but cramped way to live. Being a Burning Flame, by contrast, is a bold statement. It is risky because it means putting our deepest dreams on the line and exposing them to ridicule, censure, and doubt. However, being a Burning Flame affects people in powerful ways because burning flames are creators of reality rather than victims of it.
>The other thing is that the ripples begin. One by one, others are affected by the burning flame. Inspired. Challenged. Mobilized. Slowly but surely. As each person steps out of their own cocoon of fear, they touch others. The first candle, once lit, can ignite others others. The magic comes through multiplication.
>For me, I have chosen to be a burning flame for Dennis Kucinich. He is the most noble, intelligent, compassionate, and visionary person that I have seen run for president. He is a brightly burning flame himself, seeing through the veils of today to a better tomorrow. He is courageous and willing to lay himself on the line, to stride boldly in a time of fear.He is the kind of leader who can take America beyond aggressive nationalism to truly global leadership.
>Backing him is my statement to the world that THIS is the level of integrity I want to see in our leadership. THIS is the level of consciousness I want to see on the world stage. THIS is the kind of man I want to lead me. THIS is the future I want to see for America. THIS is the image I want to see in the media mirror. THIS is the world I want to live in. When I stand as a burning flame for him, it affects others. One by one. Through that process, Dennis becomes electable and the people who believe in what he represents begin to see themselves as powerful creators of our reality who have many, many, many allies. So dare to become a burning flame for what is in your heart and encourage other people to do so as well. They hunger for it. And you deserve it.
FULL STORY http://www.imwithdennis.com/article332.html
With talk aimed toward Blair resigning, Will Bush even be the republican nominee?
2004? Bush will beat Bush! By James Boyne
>**It is the responsibility of all Americans to vote. You should know where all the candidates stand on different issues; why they believe what they do; how they plan on carrying out their plans (rather than just empty promises); and get a sense for their character, honesty, commitment, integrity and their vision for America and for the world. You should know what their background is. How did they get to where they are now? Know their life, and you will know them. VOTE
at: http://www.opednews.com/boyne1203__bush_will_beat_bush.htm
GrannyD's shoe leather expeerience beliefs in Progressive Movement forward, allowing our better selves to flourish.
I don't think she falls for anybody but bush strategic CAPITULATION!
Those of us who are awake to the villainy, who wonder
why the few good
newspapers do not call it the treason it is, who
despair sometimes at
the comatose intoxication of our neighbors, have to
now work an
important miracle for our nation and its future.
And on this solstice night let us know that the cycles
of nature do
favor our work and they doom our greedy and
hate-mongering enemies.
Our strength rises from the gentle and fair aspect of
the American
character, which is indeed mighty. There are other
aspects of our
character, as our violent history shows. But at heart,
Americans have
an idea of America as a good and fair and caring
place. It is the
America they cherish.
We who are awake must become circles of influence in
our families,
neighborhoods and workplaces, so that the next
election will be the
counter-coup. Republicans, Democrats, Greens and
Independents must
unite to elect people who will destroy the
goose-stepping advance of
this un-American invasion that now is destroying our
moderate and
rational nation. Our enemies are not Republicans or
their party, which
has been hijacked away from its values of moderation,
fiscal
conservatism, American jobs, American family
businesses, and individual
rights and privacies. Good Republicans must be tough
against this
takeover, and Democrats must help them by offering
useful candidates
for this moment of historic intervention and
correction. These
candidates must be able to not only offer a strong and
wide bridge,
but--and here is the trick--they must be able to
inspire the half of the
citizenry who do not vote, for their services are
needed if we are to
come into November with overwhelming strength, so that
no villainy by
election officials or voting machine makers can have
enough effect.
We know that
dark times go away.
But here is a hard fact: they only go away because
brave people make
them do so. Let us do so.
speech to veterans for peace, 12/22/03
*****The convention will put forward a fresh, clear, and concise platform of issues, and build the spirit, energy and power base to hold the candidates accountable for them. There will be a diversity of women from across the country who will participate in the mobilisation. There will be a special focus on involving young women. There will be a variety of performers and artists acknowledging that culture plays a powerful role in political action. There will be a concurrent Internet mobilisation. Women's organisations will be asked to sign on and send representatives to the convention.
There will be a caravan, a rolling tour across the country, of diverse women leaders, celebrities and activists who will work with local organisers to build momentum, sign people up, register them to vote, get them organised and leave behind a tool kit for further mobilisation through the election and beyond.
This movement will be a volcano that will erupt in a flow of soft, hot, empathic, breathing, authentic, vagina-friendly, relational lava that will encircle patriarchy and smother it. We will be the flood and we'll be Noah's ark. "V" for Vagina, for vote, for victory.
"And I say unto you, one must still have chaos in oneself to be able to give birth to a dancing star."
-- Nietzsche
1) Jane Fonda's Speech
at the National Women's Leadership Summit
Washington, D.C. June 12, 2003
Before I turned sixty I thought I was a feminist. I was in a way - I worked to register women to vote, I supported women getting elected. I brought gender issues into my movie roles, I encouraged women to get strong and healthy, I read the books we've all read. I had it in my head and partly in my heart, yet I didn't fully get it.
See, although I've always been financially independent, and professionally and socially successful, behind the closed doors of my personal life I was still turning myself in a pretzel so I'd be loved by an alpha male. I thought if I didn't become whatever he wanted me to be, I'd be alone, and then, I wouldn't exist.
There is not the time nor is this the place to explain why this was true, or why it is such a common theme for so many otherwise strong, independent women. Nor is it the time to tell you how I got over it. (I'm writing my memoirs, and all will be revealed). What's important is that I did get over it. Early on in my third act I found my voice and, in the process, I have ended up alone but not really. You see, I'm with myself and this has enabled me to see feminism more clearly. It's hard to see clearly when you're a pretzel.
So I want to tell you briefly some of what I have learned in this first part of my third act and how it relates to what, I think, needs to happen in terms of a revolution.
Because we can't just talk about women being at the table - it's too late for that - we have to think in terms of the shape of the table. Is it hierarchical or circular (metaphorically speaking)? We have to think about the quality of the men who are with us at the table, the culture that is hovering over the table that governs how things are decided and in whose interests. This is not just about glass ceilings or politics as usual. This is about revolution, and I have finally gotten to where I can say that word and know what I mean by it and feel good about it because I see, now, how the future of the earth and everything on it including men and boys depends on this happening.
Let me say something about men: obviously, I've had to do a lot of thinking about men, especially the ones who've been important in my life, and what I've come to realise is how damaging patriarchy has been for them. And all them are smart, good men who want to be considered the "good guys." But the Male Belief System, that compartmentalised, hierarchical, ejaculatory, and centric power structure that is Patriarchy, is fatal to the hearts of men, to empathy and relationship.
Yes, men and boys receive privilege and status from patriarchy, but it is a poisoned privilege for which they pay a heavy price. If traditional, patriarchal socialisation takes aim at girls' voices, it takes aim at boys' hearts - makes them lose the deepest, most sensitive and empathic parts of themselves. Men aren't even allowed to be depressed, which is why they engage so often in various forms of self-numbing, from sex to alcohol and drugs to gambling and workaholism. Patriarchy strikes a Faustian bargain with men.
Patriarchy sustains itself by breaking relationship. I'm referring here to real relationship, the showing-up kind, not the "I'll stay with him cause he pays the bills, or because of the kids, or because if I don't I will cease to exist," but relationship where you, the woman, can acknowledge your partner's needs while simultaneously acknowledging and tending to your own. I work with young girls and I can tell you there's a whole generation who have not learned what a relationship is supposed to feel like -- that it's not about leaving themselves behind.
Now, every group that's been oppressed has its share of Uncle Toms, and we have our Aunt Toms. I call them ventriloquists for the patriarchy. I won't name names but we all know them. They are women in whom the toxic aspects of masculinity hold sway. It should neither surprise nor discou rage us. We need to understand it and be able to explain it to others, but it means, I think, that we should be just about getting a woman into this position or that. We need to look at "is that woman intact emotionally," has she had to forfeit her empathy gene somewhere along the way for whatever reason?
And then, of course, there are what Eve Ensler calls Vagina-Friendly men, who choose to remain emotionally literate. It's not easy for them -- look at the names they get called: wimp, pansy, pussy, soft, limp, momma's boy. Men don't like to be considered "soft" on anything, which is why more don't choose to join us in the circle. Actually, most don't have the choice to make. You know why? Because when they are real little (I learned this from Carol Gilligan), like five years or younger, boys internalise the message of what it takes to be a "real man." Sometimes it comes through their fathers who beat it into them. Sometimes it comes because no one around them knows how to connect with their emotions (This is a generational thing). Sometimes it comes because our culture rips boys from their mothers before they are developmentally ready. Sometimes it comes because boys are teased at school for crying. Sometimes it's the subliminal messages from teachers and the media. It can be a specific trauma that shuts them down. But, I can assure you, it is true to some extent of many if not most men, and when the extreme version of it manifests itself in our nation's leaders, beware!
Another thing that I've learned is that there is a fundamental contradiction not just between patriarchy and relationship, but between patriarchy and Democracy. Patriarchy masquerades as Democracy, but it's an anathema. How can it be democracy when someone has to always be above someone else, when women who are a majority, live within a social construct that discriminates against them, keeps them from having their full human rights?
But just because Patriarchy has ruled for 10,000 years since the beginning of agriculture, doesn't make it inevitable.
Maybe at some earlier stage in human evolution, Patriarchy was what was needed just for the species to survive. But today, there's nothing threatening the human species but humans. We've conquered our predators, we've subdued nature almost to extinction, and there are no more frontiers to conquer or to escape into so as to avoid having to deal with the mess we've left behind. Frontiers have always given capitalism, Patriarchy's economic face, a way to avoid dealing with its shortcomings. Well, we're having to face them now in this post-frontier era and inevitably -- especially when we have leaders who suffer from toxic masculinity - that leads to war, the conquering of new markets, and the destruction of the earth.
However, it is altogether possible, that we are on the verge of a tectonic shift in paradigms -- that what we are seeing happening today are the paroxysms, the final terrible death throes of the old, no longer workable, no longer justifiable system. Look at it this way: it's Patriarchy's third act and we have to make sure it's its last.
It's possible that the extreme, neo-conservative version of Patriarchy, which makes up our current Executive branch will over-play its hand and cause the house of cards to collapse. We know that this new "preventive war" doctrine will put us on a permanent war footing. We know there can't be guns and butter, right? We learned that with Vietnam. We know that a Pandora's box has been opened in the Middle East and that the administration is not prepared for the complexities that are emerging. We know that friends are becoming foes and angry young Muslims with no connection to Al Qaeda are becoming terrorists in greater numbers. We know that with the new tax plan the rich will be better off and the rest will be poorer. We know what happens when poor young men and women can only get jobs by joining the military and what happens when they come home and discover that the day after Congress passed the "Support Our Troops" Resolution, $25 billion was cut from the VA budget. We know that already, families of servicemen have to go on welfare and are angry about it.
So, as Eve Ensler says, we have to change the verbs from obliterate, dominate, humiliate, to liberate, appreciate, celebrate. We have to make sure that head and heart can be reunited in the body politic, and relationship and democracy can be restored.
We need to really understand the depth and breadth of what a shift to a new, feminine paradigm would mean, how fundamentally central it is to every single other thing in the world. We win, everything wins,
including boys, men, and the earth. We have to really understand this and be able to make it concrete for others so they will be able to see what Feminism really is and see themselves in it.
So our challenge is to commit ourselves to creating the tipping point and the turning point. The time is ripe to launch a unified national movement, a campaign, a tidal wave, built around issues and values, not candidates.
That's why V-Day, The White House Project and their many allies are partnering to hold a national women's convention somewhere in the heartland, next June of 2004. Its purpose will be to inspire and mobilise women and vagina-friendly men around the 2004 elections and to build a new movement that will coalesce our energies and forces around a politic of caring.
The convention will put forward a fresh, clear, and concise platform of issues, and build the spirit, energy and power base to hold the candidates accountable for them. There will be a diversity of women from across the country who will participate in the mobilisation. There will be a special focus on involving young women. There will be a variety of performers and artists acknowledging that culture plays a powerful role in political action. There will be a concurrent Internet mobilisation. Women's organisations will be asked to sign on and send representatives to the convention.
There will be a caravan, a rolling tour across the country, of diverse women leaders, celebrities and activists who will work with local organisers to build momentum, sign people up, register them to vote, get them organised and leave behind a tool kit for further mobilisation through the election and beyond.
This movement will be a volcano that will erupt in a flow of soft, hot, empathic, breathing, authentic, vagina-friendly, relational lava that will encircle patriarchy and smother it. We will be the flood and we'll be Noah's ark. "V" for Vagina, for vote, for victory.
"And I say unto you, one must still have chaos in oneself to be able to give birth to a dancing star."
-- Nietzsche
*****
Courtesy of People's News Agency (PNA)
Proutist Universal, Nelson, New Zealand
c/o Grace Verte
http://www.graceverte.com
and courtesy of *many* others
Let's go BACK to Clinton/Gore
and NOT Be Brave enough
to TRY something More?
Get to the Core
STOP all WAR
Help the Poor in 2004
NO Bossism, NO More
The People of the WEB, Know the Score,
and We Will go Door to Door in 2004-
REAL Simple to See, Brothers and Sisters!
What IS possABLE is MORE
Cultural Alchemist-jefree p.
www.imwithdennis.com
 E-Mail: spacebuddy008@hotmail.com  Website: http://www.vancouver.indymedia.org/news/2003/12/95739.php
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